VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 5
Tormenting That Grinds Life, Crushing That Breaks Life, the First Two Links of the Chain That Harms the People Lawfully
The last section set up that the ones illiterate in the law are everywhere, and in the hand of each is pinched a person's life and death. This section, and the next, take that chain of harming the people lawfully and lay it open for you, link by link. This chain has four links, from light to heavy, a person ground down, step by step, from a small torment to the losing of his life. This section tells the first two links, tormenting that grinds life, and crushing that breaks life. Let me say ahead of time, no real case will name a place or a person here, because this thing is not one place's, one person's, it is everywhere, and to point at any one is to make it look as though only that one were bad.
The first link, tormenting that grinds life. This is the lightest of the four, and also the most widespread, the one you meet most often. What is it? It is that one, holding a scrap of the law, of the rule, reading only the dead letter, who torments you without end at the place where you go to handle a matter.
Look back at the fourth chapter's window, and set it now under the law's ruler and look. You go to handle a matter that concerns your livelihood, your medical care, your home. Across from you sits one who holds the rule and reads only the dead letter. This form, a box short, go back and do it over. Done over and brought back, and another box is off, go back again. This document is missing a stamp, go get the stamp, and the stamp got and brought back, and he says the format is not right, do it again. Round after round, he never once, at one go, tells you all that is wanting, he lets you run one trip for each thing found, and each trip is a day, is a fare, is a wait, is a leave taken from work. He reads only the dead letter, this box has to be filled, this stamp has to be there, and the living intent under it, that your matter is reasonable, that you are a person in a hurry, in a hard spot, waiting on this to live, he does not see, does not care.
Do not think this a small thing. Its name is tormenting that grinds life. It grinds. It does not kill you at one stroke, it grinds you, a little at a time. A person with a pressing matter, ground round and round like this, the days dragged out, the money spent, the strength worn down, the heart worn cold. Someone waiting on this matter for money to save a life, ground round and round, and the one to be saved may be ground past saving. Someone waiting on this matter to keep a livelihood, ground round and round, and the livelihood may be ground away. This grinding does not show blood, but it grinds away a person's time, a person's money, a person's strength, a person's hope, and in the heavy cases, grinds away a life that was waiting on the matter. And the one doing the grinding feels no fault at all, he only went by the rule, the box was truly short, the stamp truly missing, all by the book. This is the first link, the lightest, the most common, and it is quietly grinding, everywhere, at the days of millions upon millions of people.
The second link, one weight heavier, crushing that breaks life. The first link is passive grinding, letting you run, letting you wait, wearing you down. The second link is active crushing. It is that one, holding the law, reading only the dead letter, who, when you have done nothing truly harmful to anyone, by the dead letter presses a charge down on you, crushes you, and breaks the road you were walking.
Let me draw it out for you. A person, living plain and proper, doing a small trade to keep his family, or holding some small right that is his by nature, the first chapter's inborn freedom, the fourth chapter's inborn freedom. He did a thing that harmed no one, that by the living intent is entirely within bounds. But it happens to touch the edge of some dead letter. And that one holding the law, reading only the dead letter, seizes on it, you are over this line, and presses a charge down on you. He does not weigh whether you truly harmed anyone, does not weigh whether there was cause, does not weigh whether by the intent you are entirely within bounds. He sees only that the dead letter can be laid on you, and he lays it on, and crushes you.
Once this charge is pressed down, the road you were walking breaks. Your small trade, sealed. That small right of yours, stripped. Your good name, stained. The livelihood you had, cut off at a stroke. You did nothing that harmed anyone, and by one stroke of the dead letter, the whole road under your feet is broken. This is called crushing that breaks life. It breaks the road you were walking, breaks your livelihood, breaks your standing, and pushes you, from a person living plain and proper, down into a corner with no road out.
And the most maddening thing is, this crushing too is lawful, by the book. That one who crushed you did, on the surface, break no rule, he went by the dead letter, this clause does say so, you did touch this line, and the procedure was complete, the papers in order. You are plainly crushed with no cause, and you cannot find the flaw, cannot reason it out, because on the surface everything he did is by the book. This is exactly the fearful thing the third section spoke of, harm done wearing the full skin of the law. You are harmed, broken, and the one who broke you stands in the full light, by the book, without a flaw, and you, the broken one, have nowhere even to cry out.
Let me have you see clearly the tie between these two links, and the step up. The first link, tormenting that grinds life, is passive, is wearing you down, letting you run, letting you wait, and it grinds your time, your money, your strength. The second link, crushing that breaks life, is active, is pressing a charge on you, and it breaks the road you were walking, your livelihood, your standing. From grinding to crushing, from wearing you down to breaking your road, it is one step heavier. The person, ground first, and if the grinding does not finish him, crushed, and the road broken. These two links, joined, are the front half of that chain that harms the people lawfully, from a light grinding, step by step, toward the breaking of a person's road.
And look through both links, and the root is the same one thing. The one who grinds you, the one who crushes you, in his hand holds only the dead letter, and in his heart has lost the living intent of the law, protecting people. If he held that intent, the moment he saw you were a person in a hard spot, waiting on the matter to live, he would help you through at one go, and not grind you round and round. The moment he saw you had harmed no one, were entirely within bounds by the intent, he would let you pass, and not seize on a dead letter to crush you. It is exactly because he has lost the intent and holds only the dead letter that the ruler in his hand, which was meant to protect you, turns into a grindstone, a press, that harms you. So these two links of harm both grow out of that one root the sections before set up, the representative of the law turned illiterate in the law, reading the letter and losing the intent. The next section goes on to the two heavier links behind, robbing that cuts life off, and hounding that takes life, and lays open the back half of this chain, the two links that truly cost lives.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.